The Crossing

  They sat holding their glasses. They looked at the drunk man. Tome, Alfonso, said the younger man. He gestured with his glass. The barman raised his own glass and drank and set the empty glass on the table again and leaned back. Like a player who has moved his piece and sits back to await the results. He looked across the table at the youngest man who sat slightly apart with his hat down over his forehead and his full glass in both hands before him like an offering. Who'd so far said no word at all. The whole room had begun to hum very slightly.

  The ends of all ceremony are but to avert bloodshed. But the drunk man by his condition inhabited a twilight state of responsibility and to this the man at his side made silent appeal. He smiled and shrugged and raised his glass to the norteamericano and drank. When he set his glass down again the drunk man stirred. He leaned slowly forward and reached for his glass and the younger man smiled and raised his glass again as if to welcome him back from his morbidities. But the drunk man clutched the glass and then slowly held it out to the side of the table and poured the whiskey on the floor and set the glass back upon the table once more. Then he reached unsteadily for the bottle of mescal and turned it up and poured the oily yellow fuel into his glass and set the bottle back on the table with the sediment and the worm coiling slowly clockwise in the glass floor of it. Then he leaned back as before.

  The younger man looked at Billy. Outside in the darkened town a dog barked.

  No le gusta el whiskey? Billy said.

  The drunk man did not answer. The glass of mescal sat as it had sat when Billy first entered the bar.

  Es el sello, said the younger man.

  El sello?

  Si.

  He said that he objected to the seal which was the seal of an oppressive government. He said that he would not drink from such a bottle. That it was a matter of honor.

  Billy looked at the drunk man.

  Es mentira, the drunk man said.

  Mentira? said Billy.

  Si. Mentira.

  Billy looked at the younger man. He asked him what it was that was a lie but the younger man told him not to preoccupy himself. Nada es mentira, he said.

  No es cuestion de ningun sello, the drunk man said.

  He spoke slowly but not without facility. He had turned and addressed his statement to the younger man beside him. Then he turned back and continued to stare at Billy. Billy made a circle with his finger. Otra vez, he said. The barman reached and took up the bottle.

  You want to drink that stinkin catpiss in favor of good american whiskey, Billy said, you be my guest.

  Mande? said the drunk man.

  The barman sat uncertainly. Then he leaned and poured the empty glasses and picked up the cork and pushed it back into the bottle. Billy raised his glass. Salud, he said. He drank. All drank. Save for the drunk man. Out in the street the old Spanish bells rang once, rang twice. The drunk leaned forward. He reached past the glass of mescal standing before him and seized the bottle of mescal again. He picked it up and poured Billy's glass full with a slight circular movement of his hand. As if the small tumbler must be filled in some prescribed fashion. Then he tipped the bottle up and set it on the table and leaned back.

  The barman and the two younger man sat holding their glasses. Billy sat looking at the mescal. He leaned back in the chair. He looked toward the door. He could see Nino standing inn the street. The musicians who had fled were already playing again somewhere in another street, another taverna. Or perhaps it was other musicians. He reached and took up the mescal and held it to the light. A smokelike sediment curled in the glass. Small bits of debris. No one moved. He tilted the glass and drank.

  Salud, called the younger man. They drank. The barman drank. They clapped their empty tumblers on the table and they smiled around. Then Billy leaned to one side and spat the mescal in the floor.

  In the ensuing silence the pueblo itself seemed to have been sucked up by the desert round. There was no sound anywhere. The drunk man sat stilled in the act of reaching for his glass. The younger man lowered his eyes. In the shadow of the lamp his eyes even looked closed and may have been. The drunk man balled his reaching hand and lowered it to the table. Billy circled one finger in the air slowly. Otra vez, he said.

  The barman looked at Billy. He looked at the leaden-eyed patriot sitting with his fist upright beside his glass. Era demasiado fuerte para el, he said. Demasiado fuerte.

  Billy didnt take his eyes from the drunk man. Mas mentiras, he said. He said that it was not at all the case that the mescal was too strong for him as the barman claimed.

  They sat looking at the mescal bottle. At the black half moon of the bottle's shadow beside the bottle. When the drunk man did not move or speak Billy reached across the table for the whiskey bottle and poured the glasses round once more and set the bottle back on the table. Then he pushed back his chair and stood.

  The drunk man placed both hands on the edge of the table.

  The man who had so far not spoken at all said in english that if he reached for his billfold the man would shoot him.

  I dont doubt that for a minute, Billy said. He spoke to the bartender without taking his eyes from the man across the table. Cuanto debo? he said.

  Cinco dolares? said the barman.

  He reached into his shirtpocket with two fingers and took out his money and dealt it open with his thumb and slid loose a five-dollar bill and laid it on the table. He looked at the man who'd spoken to him in english. Will he shoot me in the back? he said.

  The man looked up at him from under his hatbrim and smiled. No, he said. I dont think so.

  Billy touched the brim of his hat and nodded to the men at the table. Caballeros, he said. And turned to start for the door leaving his filled glass on the table.

  If he calls to you do not turn around, the young man said.

  He did not stop and he did not turn and he'd very nearly reached the door when the man did call. Joven, he said.

  He stopped. The horses out in the street raised their heads and looked at him. He looked at the distance to the door which was no more than his own length. Walk, he said. Just walk. But he didnt walk. He turned around.

  The drunk man had not moved. He sat in his chair and the young man who spoke english had risen and stood beside him with one hand on his shoulder. They looked to be posed for some album of outlawry.

  Me llama embustero? said the drunk man.

  No, he said.

  Embustero? He clawed at his shirt and ripped it open. It was fastened with snaps and it opened easily and with no sound. As if perhaps the snaps were worn and loose from just such demonstrations in the past. He sat holding his shirt wide open as if to invite again the trinity of rifleballs whose imprint lay upon his smooth and hairless chest just over his heart in so perfect an isoscelian stigmata. No one at the table moved. None looked at the patriot nor at his scars for they had seen it all before. They watched the guero where he stood framed in the door. They did not move and there was no sound and he listened for something in the town that would tell him that it was not also listening for he had a sense that some part of his arrival in this place was not only known but ordained and he listened for the musicians who had fled upon his even entering these premises and who themselves perhaps were listening to the silence from somewhere in those cratered mud precincts and he listened for any sound at all other than the dull thud of his heart dragging the blood through the small dark corridors of his corporeal life in its slow hydraulic tolling. He looked at the man who'd warned him not to turn but that was all the warning that man had. What he saw was that the only manifest artifact of the history of this negligible republic where he now seemed about to die that had the least authority or meaning or claim to substance was seated here before him in the sallow light of this cantina and all else from men's lips or from men's pens would require that it be beat out hot all over again upon the anvil of its own enactment before it could even qualify as a lie. Then it all passed. He took off his hat and stood. Then for better or fo
r worse he put it on again and turned and walked out the door and untied the horses and mounted up and rode out down the narrow street leading the packhorse and he did not look back.

  *

  HE'D NOT GOT CLEAR of the town before a drop of rain the size of a middle taw landed in the brim of his hat. Then another. He looked up into a cloudless sky. The visible planets burning in the east. There was no wind nor smell of rain in the air yet the drops fell the more. The horse wanted to stop in the road and the rider looked back at the dark town. The few small window squares of dim and reddish light. The smack of the rain falling on the hard clay of the road sounded like horses somewhere in the darkness crossing a bridge. He was beginning to feel drunk. He halted the horse and then turned and rode back.

  He rode the horse through the first door he came to, dropping the packhorse's rope and leaning low along his horse's neck to clear the doorbeam. Inside he sat the animal in the selfsame rain and he looked up to see the selfsame stars above him. He reined the horse about and rode out again and entered another doorway and at once the muted clatter of the raindrops on the crown of his hat ceased. He got down and stomped about in the dark to see what was underfoot. He went out and brought in the packhorse and untied the diamondhitch and pulled his soogan off onto the ground and unbuckled and pulled down the packframe and hobbled the animal and drove it back out into the rain. Then he pulled loose the latigo on his saddlehorse and pulled off the saddle and saddlebags and stood the saddle against the wall and knelt down and felt out the ropes on the soogan and untied and unrolled it and sat and pulled off his boots. He was feeling drunker. He took off his hat and lay down. The horse walked past his head and stood looking out the door. Dont you step on me damn you, he said.

  When he woke in the morning the rain had stopped and it was full daylight. He felt awful. He'd risen sometime in the night and staggered out to vomit and he remembered casting about with his weeping eyes for some sign of the horses and then staggering in again. He might not have remembered it except that when he sat up and looked around for his boots they were on his feet. He picked up his hat and put it on and looked toward the door. Several children who had been crouched there watching him stood up and backed away.

  Donde estan los caballos? he said.

  They said that the horses were eating.

  He stood too fast and leaned against the door jamb holding his eyes. He was afire with thirst. He raised his head again and stepped out through the door and looked at the children. They were pointing down the road.

  He walked out past the last of the row of low mud dwellings with the children following behind and walked the horses down in a grassy field on the south side of the town where a small stream crossed the road. He stood holding Nino's reins. The children watched.

  Quieres montar? he said.

  They looked at one another. The youngest was a boy of about five and he held both arms straight up in the air and stood waiting. Billy picked him up and set him astride the horse and then the little girl and lastly the oldest boy. He told the oldest boy to hold on to the younger ones and the boy nodded and he picked up the reins again and the packhorse's trailing rope and led both horses back up toward the road.

  A woman was coming along from the town. When the children saw her they whispered among themselves. She was carrying a blue pail with a cloth over it. She stood by the side of the road holding the pail by the bailwire in both hands before her. Then she started down through the field towards them.

  Billy touched his hat and wished her a good morning. She stopped and stood holding the pail. She said that she had been looking for him. She said that she knew he'd not gone far because his bed and his saddle were where he'd left them. She said that the children had told her that there was a horseman asleep in the caidas at the edge of town who was sick and she had brought him some menudo hot from the fire and if he would eat it he would then have strength for his journey.

  She bent and set the pail on the ground and lifted away the cloth and handed the cloth to him. He stood holding it and looking down at the pail. Inside sat a bowl of speckled tinware covered with a saucer and beside the bowl were wedged some folded tortillas. He looked at her.

  Andale, she said. She gestured toward the pail.

  Y usted?

  Ya comi.

  He looked at the children aligned upon the horse's back. He handed up the reins and the catchrope to the boy.

  Toma un paseo, he said.

  The boy reached forward and took the reins and he handed the end of the catchrope to the girl and then handed the half rein over the girl's head and booted the horse forward. Billy looked at the woman. Es muy amable, he said. She said for him to eat before it grew cold.

  He squatted on the ground and tried to lift out the bowl but it was too hot. Con permiso, she said. She reached down and took the bowl from the pail and lifted off the saucer and set the bowl in the saucer and handed it to him. Then she reached down and took out a spoon and handed him that.

  Gracias, he said.

  She knelt in the grass opposite to watch him eat. The ribbons of tripe swam in the clear and oily broth like slow planarians. He said that he was not really sick but only somewhat crudo from his night in the tavern. She said that she understood and that it was of no consequence and that sickness had no way to know who'd caused it thanks be to God for all of us.

  He took a tortilla from the pail and tore it and refolded it and dipped it in the broth. He spooned up a piece of tripe and it sloughed from the spoon and he cut it in two against the side of the bowl with the edge of the spoon. The menudo was hot and rich with spice. He ate. She watched.

  The children rode up on the horse behind him and sat waiting. He looked up at them and made a circling motion with his finger and they set off again. He looked at the woman.

  Son suyos?

  She shook her head. She said that they were not.

  He nodded. He watched them go. The bowl had cooled somewhat and he took it by the rim and tipped it up and drank from it and took a bite of the tortilla. Muy sabroso, he said.

  She said that she had had a son but that he was dead twenty years.

  He looked at her. He thought that she did not look old enough to have had a child twenty years ago but then she seemed no particular age at all. He said that she must have been very young and she said that she had indeed been very young but that the grief of the young is greatly undervalued. She put one hand to her chest. She said that the child lived in her soul.

  He looked out across the field. The children sat astride the horse at the edge of the river and the boy seemed to be waiting for the horse to drink. The horse stood waiting for whatever next thing might be required of it. He drained the last of the menudo and folded the last quadrant of the tortilla and wiped the bowl with it and ate it and set bowl and spoon and saucer back in the bucket and looked at the woman.

  Cuanto le debo, senora, he said.

  Senorita, she said. Nada.

  He took the folded bills from his shirtpocket. Para los ninos.

  Ninos no tengo.

  Para los nietos.

  She laughed and shook her head. Nietos tampoco, she said.

  He sat holding the money.

  Es para el camino, she said.

  Bueno. Gracias.

  Deme su mano.

  Como?

  Su mano.

  He gave her his hand and she took it and turned it palm up and held it in hers and studied it.

  Cuantos anos tiene? she said.

  He said that he was twenty.

  Tan joven. She traced his palm with the tip of her finger. She pursed her lips. Hay ladrones aqui, she said.

  En mi palma?

  She leaned back and closed her eyes and laughed. She laughed with an easy enthusiasm. Me lleva Judas, she said. No. She shook her head. She had on only a thin flowered shift and her breasts swung inside the cloth. Her teeth were white and perfect. Her legs bare and brown.

  Donde pues? he said.

  She caught her lo
wer lip with her teeth and studied him with her dark eyes. Aqui, she said. En este pueblo.

  Hay ladrones en todos lados, he said.

  She shook her head. She said that in Mexico there were villages where robbers lived and villages where they did not. She said that it was a reasonable arrangement.

  He asked her if she was a robber and she laughed again. Ay, she said. Dios mio, que hombre. She looked at him. Quizas, she said.

  He asked her what sorts of things she would steal if she were a robber but she only smiled and turned his hand in hers and studied it.

  Que ve? he said.

  El mundo.

  El mundo?

  El mundo segun usted.

  Es gitana?

  Quizas si. Quizas no.

  She placed her other hand over his. She looked out across the field where the children were riding.

  Que vio? he said.

  Nada. No vi nada.

  Es mentira.

  Si.

  He asked her why she would not tell what she had seen but she only smiled and shook her head. He asked if there were no good news at all and she became more serious and nodded yes and she turned his palm up again. She said that he would live a long life. She traced the line where it circled under the base of his thumb.

  Con mucha tristeza, he said.

  Bastante, she said. She said that there was no life without sadness.

  Pero usted ha visto algo malo, he said. Que es?

  She said that whatever she had seen could not be helped be it good or bad and that he would come to know it all in God's good time. She studied him with her head slightly cocked. As if there were some question he must ask if only he were quick enough to ask it but he did not know what it was and the moment was fast passing.

  Que novedades tiene de mi hermano, he said.

  Cual hermano?

  He smiled. He said that he had but one brother.

  She uncovered his hand and held it. She did not look at it. Es mentira, she said. Tiene dos.

  He shook his head.

  Mentira trasmentira, she said. She bent to study his palm.

  Que ve? he said.

  Veo dos hermanos. Uno ha muerto.

  He said that he had a sister who had died but she shook her head. Hermano, she said. Uno que vive, uno que ha muerto.

  Cual es cual?

  No sabes?